The present invention relates generally to the field of mobile device location monitoring, and more particularly to the use of a server-based application to receive and manage a user request from a mobile computing device to determine an appropriate nearby exercise partner engaged in a specified exercise activity.
A rapid growth of the market for activity tracking devices, fitness apps, and associated products and services for monitoring and recording fitness activity is occurring. Activity tracking devices such as Fitbit Tracker® are wireless-enabled wearable technology devices for tracking a user's activity level. Activity trackers may record various measures of fitness activity or exercise such as a number of steps taken by a user, a user heart rate, a user's location, a rate of change or speed of a user's motion, and other user-related exercise metrics. Activity tracking devices may be associated or coupled with mobile apps, other computer programs and databases in various computing devices to collect, analyze, and store activity related data.
Numerous activity tracking apps that track and record fitness related activities are available to mobile device users. Activity tracking devices and activity tracking apps on mobile devices such as smart phones may access fitness services provided by a cloud service or a client-server computing system. Various fitness services allow users to store and analyze exercise performance data. Some fitness apps or activity tracking apps access databases and/or server-based programs that share exercise workouts, such as running routes with other individuals. Additionally, activity tracking apps accessing a server-based application, may publish individual performance data and post leader boards for activities such as running, cycling, weight lifting, and the like. Some activity tracking apps may enable users to provide comments, encouragement, coaching, and in some cases, to issue challenges to other users.